When a whale or dolphin comes in for rehabilitation
the odds are against them,
it’s less than 10% survive.
And in terms of belugas, it just has not been attempted that much.
So I was actually out in the Cook Inlet
doing a necropsy of another Cook Inlet beluga whale
And we were leaving the area when they spotted
what they at first thought was another carcass
so they went to check it out and low and behold it was a live calf.
Their first response was to try and see whether it would go back into the water
but unfortunately, it wouldn't.
Here at the Alaska SeaLife center, we primarily care for seals and otters
as well as walrus.
So it’s very unusual for us to have a beluga here
And there have only been a few other beluga calves
in North America that have come in for rehabilitation
So it's extremely unusual.
Fortunately for this calf,
we felt that he had been with mom for a little while
so he got that initial burst of antibodies
and good stuff from mom.
He also had learned some behaviors,
like he knew how to suckle
and he very quickly learned to suckle from a bottle
and so that helped him out in particular.
(Sucking sound)
The aquaria in the lower 48
have been extremely generous.
Sending staff and helping in numerous ways.
Yes! Made it all the way over here.
We had to check him out!
I work with our adult belugas at Mystic
but it’s definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.
This is my first day in with him
in the water, and it's
it's amazing.
the trust that he has for us
and the willingness of him to come over
not only for his bottle
but for tactile and just that interaction is awesome.
Baby beluga!
Well initially, just like any kinda sick person,
he was rather punky and didn’t have a whole lot of energy
he obviously did damage to some of his muscles,
just bruising and what not from laying on a beach rather than floating in the water.
And he did have pneumonia.
and he very much just kind of hung out with staff
next to staff
being, you know,
constantly touching staff either with his peck or his melon
Since then, over time, we’ve been able to let him spend more time on his own
(Beluga breathing)
He also, we can tell he's
when he's moving his head, he's working on his ecolocation
and exploring
he certainly, interacts a lot with people and plays with them
Caring for stranded animals isn’t just about caring for stranded animals.
It’s an opportunity to learn about the species
and the pressures going on in the population in the wild.
We have definitely learned a lot from him.
There have been a couple of firsts.
The biggest is
this is the first beluga from Cook Inlet that we’ve been able to do a hearing test on.
But it’s also important for the greater population for scientists and resource managers
because one of the concerns
of what might be a pressure to the Cook Inlet beluga whales
is their ability to hear in what’s a very noisy environment.
Also just understanding what it takes caloric wise.
How many calories he needs to be able grow.
That feeds into information about how much belugas need to eat,
how much food in the environment there needs to be.
So you can extrapolate
you can take that information
and apply it to a larger part of the population
to determine whether that’s one of the pressures the population is undergoing.
There has been interest across the nation
and there’s interest in Canada as well.
They also have a highly endangered group of beluga whale in St. Laurence.
And we'll probably be talking about him for a very long time.
(Music)